Splash! You are in Costa Rica's Blue Eco Blog. Echoing Eco for Oceans and Waters. Giving voice to dolphins and whales, their waves and their waters, and all denizens of the deep. News they think you should use. Dive in.

Avivando delfines. Dolphin Stoking. How to meet, greet and stoke a dolphin megapod. People and Dolphins come together in the big blue offshore Osa peninsula, Costa RIca. Offshore Osa is the only place where this kind of thing is known and these dolphins need protection from nets and lines and hooks. Right?

Recent research on Hawaiian spinner
dolphins indicates that they need protected times and places.
Surprise! One bay is visited by as many as sixty swimmers at a time
who try to play with a small group of dolphins. Seems the dolphins
rest in the early daylight hours, and that’s when many swimmer
tourists head out. Less dolphins may come into the bay and the
dolphins might leave earlier than usual when too many people show up.
Spinners in Hawaii rest in small groups near shore in shallow sandy
bays near deep water. Scientists say these places need protection.
Clearly tourists should be told to leave the dolphins alone in the
early daylight hours and fishing and extraction should be stopped in
the bays. Costa Rican dolphins should have it so good.

Costa Rican spinner dolphins deal with
giant nets towed by ships, helicopters dropping bombs, long lines
full of hooks, shrimp trawlers bulldozing the bottom, surprise drill
ships making a big mess, big banging seismic surveys, cargo ships
blitzing by, sport fishers plowing through the pod with lines and
hooks, tourist boats gawking, and even some divers in the water. How
do you think that effects their beauty sleep?

Don't forget here in Costa Rica spinner
dolphins have no protected place at all.

Costa Rican spinner and spotted
dolphins, who also rest in the early daylight, need tourists to leave
them alone at this time. Sport fishing boats need to stop fishing in
the dolphins as they particularly like the early hours of the day.
Many hotel managers want tours to leave early to get everyone out of
the hotel, but this is the wrong strategy if you are concerned about
dolphins. Tourist operators like divers and fishers should put up on
their web pages that they leave the dolphins alone in the am. Guests
of Costa Cetacea over the years will recall that all tours leave late
and respect the dolphins rest time, much to the frustration of some
hotel managers. The interactions here in Costa Rica are much more
interesting in the PM anyway.

Aloha to the Hawaiians for once again
being the world ocean leaders. Lets hope Costa Rica follows.

The voice of the vast majority of ocean users is heard and they are not catch and release billfishers.

Fishers should always have access to most of the worlds oceans, not
just for sport but to eat! But the world does need some places in the
ocean to be free of nets and lines. Catching and releasing endangered billfish is not sport fishing and not as many people do it as some would have you think.

The crazy well funded, massivly sponsered, internationally super influencial Billfish Foundation took a big wave over the bow when the Prime Minister of Australia,
backed by the people of one of the most ocean savy nations on earth,
said our oceans are for a lot more than just catch and release
billfishing. The Billfish Foundation has waged a campaign against marine
protected areas, encouraging members to come out and help stop creation
of marine protected areas

Latin America's greatest ocean hero, Laura Chinchilla, granted future
Costa Ricans a much better chance of sustainably utilizing our Oceans
into the future. The sad free for all of too powerful special interests
will now be controlled with vision directed to the people and the
future by a new Vice Minister of Aguas and Mares. Wow! No thats how
you do it! Seems now the voices of all groups of ocean users, not just
the most connected screaming special interests, will have a say. Now is
time for Costa Ricans to speak up about what they know about our
oceans, and help conserve it. Have you heard about the largest dolphin
pod in the world, the spinner dolphins of the Osa peninsula and Cano
Island? Aaaa, happens to be they need a park! They live near to famous
protected areas Corcovado National Park and Cano Island Biological
Reserve, BUT, they live in waters attacked by nets and lines. This Park
or protected area, needs to be south and west of Cano Island to at
least a distance of 30 nautical miles to help these spinners. NOT just 8
miles from the island as some are saying! 8 miles is not enough to
protect the biggest dolphin pod in the world and Golfito and Puerto
Jimenez need to make a lot money in the long run from conserving these
dolphins, not killing them for short term collapsing profits.

FADs popular with marine life in Costa Rica’s oceans

Divers check out a floating piece of tree, and the schools of fish drawn to it, off southwestern Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula.

Those who ply the sea know floating things attract or
aggregate fish. Fish aggregating devices, known as FADs, are often
thought of as manmade objects, but that is not always the case.

Shawn Larkin

For most of history, the fad in FADs was natural, in the form
of forest products: a branch or a tree falls into a river and makes its
way to the sea. Any Tico captain knows to be ever watchful for floating
branches and tree trunks that can damage a prop or hull, especially
during the high runoff of rainy season, even when far offshore. But jump
in with a piece of tree in the sea and you may be shocked.

Vast
clouds of marine life will surround floating things that are smaller
than you. When you jump in, all the life will often surround you like
moths to a flame. Sometimes people jump right back in the boat when they
realize there is no reef to dive down to. But you are the reef, and
there may be so many fish surrounding you that you cannot see someone
right next to you.

FADs offshore of southwestern Costa Rica’s Osa
Peninsula often draw diver favorites like silky sharks and manta rays,
two species recently declared endangered. Super- and megapods of
dolphins become natural FADs, and they check out other FADs.

Why
do many whales and dolphins, more than 300 species of fish like sharks,
rays and billfish, all sea turtle species and countless crustaceans,
seaweeds, invertebrates and other marine life hang out at natural and
manmade FADs? Structure, protection, food and social opportunities seem
to be the big attractions. Life like seaweed and barnacles quickly
starts growing on almost all floating things. Other life shows up to eat
what’s there. Still others may come for a bit of shade or a place to
hide. Then come bigger things, and then even bigger things. A lot of
marine life seems programmed with the instinct to check out FADs,
probably because of the good chances to find lunch or a mate, or to not
be eaten.

So where you have FADs, you have a lot of marine life.
The longer the FAD is in the water, the more life it accumulates. Places
with a lot of rivers and forests produce many natural FADs year-round,
but mostly during rainy season and severe weather. The rivers of Costa
Rica run full of FADs that will later drift many kilometers out to sea
and grow their own clouds of marine life.

Natural FADs probably
increase Costa Rica’s marine biodiversity and bioproductivity more than
most people realize. Other places that are not so blessed with natural
FADs make their own for local artisan and sport fishers and divers.
Hawaii put in a system of FADs offshore of the islands in the 1970s.
Today, each one of these many manmade FADs produces thousands of
kilograms of fish a year with no by-catch, as well as recreation for
local communities.

The purse seine commercial fishing industry
also deploys manmade FADs, but on a massive scale over the entire
Pacific. After the FADs grow their clouds of life, the ships put it all
in a net. If they find a natural FAD, they do the same thing. This has a
rather different outcome than the Hawaiian method.

The Hawaiian
way kills no marine life other than food fish, and the local communities
get the food and money the FAD generates. The Costa Rican purse seine
netters’ way destroys the entire marine chain of life around the FAD,
and no money or food goes to local Costa Ricans.

You need to watch this video. Here offshore of the Osa super and megapods of dolphins are massive fish attracting devices or FADs. Under the dolphins swim heaps of other marine life. Countless dolphins, whales, sharks, billfish, turtles and more is slaughtered in Costa Rica everyday and it seems our well funded non profits DO NOTHING TO SPREAD AWARNESS OR STOP THIS UNBELIEVABLE MARINE LIFE SLAUGHTER. Is is corruption? Laziness? Fear? Ignorace? Who knows? But thank you Greenpeace for actually getting wet for marine conservation and not just trying to keep your socks dry in a nice office in the city.